Anathemae, the Eighth Voice
Anathemae is a Death Knight in the service of the Ebon Blade. She is currently assigned to the Ebon Onslaught as a Keeper. Early History Early Life Anathemae was born Ashanae Rainbreeze, the eldest daughter or Roane (a ranger) and Nyissa (a Priestess of Elune.) She was born in Suramar, and while there is no exact date of her birth, the year is known-she was born 268 years before the crowning of Queen Azshara. She had a younger brother named Leyith, who was a strong sorcerer. In life, Ashanae's skin was a soft bluish-silver, and her hair was a bright leaf green. Her eyes were golden, and like those who shared the trait, it was predicted that she would go on to do great things. Ashanae eventually followed the path of both her mother and her father by becoming a Priestess of Elune who specialized in both the bow and two-handed weaponry (though she favored the mighty greatsword.) The majority of her priestess training took place in the Temple of Elune in Val'sharah, though she spent considerable time in the Gardens of Elune, studying under the Oracle. She underwent the adulthood rites at the age of 300, during which time she took the Claw tattoo markings as her own. The Claw marking is associated with nightsabers, and thus the Night Warrior aspect of Elune. A favored marking of Huntresses, who ride nightsabers into battle. The qualities associated with the Claw markings are: * meeting challenges head on * bravery * ferocity * strength * speed * agility * stealth * hunting * grace * cunning * tracking * pride * intelligence * loyalty * feral * aggressive * predator For many years, Ashanae served the Temple faithfully, watching over her people and prowling the forests of primordial Kalimdor, wary of any attackers. The War of the Ancients During this tumultuous time, Ashanae served in a support/scout capacity across the night elven territories, but she was stationed out of the main Temple of Elune in Val'sharah. The priestesses there proved to be a massive thorn in the side of the Legion, and despite their numerous attempts to destroy it, they were ultimately unsuccessful. Most of her immediate family was killed during the course of the invasion. Her father was killed during the Legion's initial assault, and her mother died in a skirmish outside of Suramar. Leyith, however, had chosen to ally himself with the Queen and the Legion. He was transformed into a satyr, and it is unknown if he is still alive or not. The Long Vigil When the world was shattered by the Great Sundering, Ashanae was stranded in what is now known as Darkshore. When called upon to stand the Long Vigil, at the creation of Nordrassil, the World Tree, she willingly did so. Ashanae became a Sentinel and remained a Priestess of Elune. She was stationed along the southern border of Ashenvale in the area now known as Felwood, ghosting through the woods, vigilant for any signs of the Legion's return. Recent History The Third War Ashanae saw extensive action during the Third War, though she saw nothing of the Scourge. The majority of her time was spent in Felwood, attempting to cleanse the forest of fel corruption by the Legion and tracking and slaying prominent Legion figures in the area. She had minimal contact with the orcs but considerable contact with Tichondrius's minions. After Illidan's defeat of the dreadlord and Archimonde's fall at Nordrassil, Ashanae offered to serve her people as an ambassador to the Alliance. The Alliance Her skill as both a scout and a healer were put to great use during the first burgeoning days of the Alliance. She was present at all major conflicts during this time: the rise of the Black Dragonflight, the attempted resurrection of Hakkar by the Zandalari, the banishing of Ragnaros in the Molten Core. However, it was during the initial siege of Naxxramas that Ashanae found her true calling. Naxxramas Months before the forces of Azeroth began laying siege to the necropolis known as Naxxramas, Ashanae joined the Argent Dawn and acted as a liaison from her people, a scout, and a healer. During the first initial pushes into the Plaguelands, she and a small scout force of nine were sent to reconnoiter the area around Naxxramas to determine a good striking point. While they were able to send good reports about the area around the necropolis, they attempted to breach its defenses to get some information about the forces inside. They failed spectacularly and were captured. Three of them were outright killed, but Ashanae and two others were captured and taken inside. Inside the poisoned halls, Ashanae lost all sense of time. She was given to the necromancers for torture, and spent weeks in wrought iron cages or stretched out on the rack while they inflicted pain and tried to pry as much information about the Alliance and their plans out of her as they could. However, even within the unholy halls, Ashanae could still call on Elune's grace. The tortured her every day, but every night she healed herself, and the next morning found her hale and whole again, forcing the necromancers to start all over again. Eventually, however, they caught on to what she was doing and decided to cut her connection to her goddess. Over the course of several days, they carved unholy runes into Ashanae's skin. At night, when she tried to heal the wounds, she found that Elune's grace seems to be becoming more distant. She cold barely hear the voice of the Goddess, and her wounds refused to heal, no matter how hard she tried. Over time, the Lich King's forces severed her ties to Elune, leaving her despondent. Even after her connection to Elune was gone, Ashanae refused to give up any information on the Alliance and she stubbornly refused to die, though her body became weaker and weaker with blood loss and infection. They subjected her to every poison and plague they had at their disposal, and she weakened physically at an alarming rate but refusing to utter a word. Eventually, this stubborn tenacity brought her to the attention of the Death Knights housed within Naxxramas's walls. They decided that her strength of will would make her a fine servant of the Lich King and a powerful Death Knight in her own right. So they murdered Ashanae one night, tearing her soul from her body and snapping her neck as she was stretched on the rack, bleeding profusely and pale due to sickness. The Death Knights performed their rituals to make her one of them while necromancers held her soul and prevented it from fleeing. this act, combined with the dozens of horrific acts already performed on her, turned her into a banshee (though whether or not that was intentional is unknown). Once the rituals were complete, the banshee-soul was forced back into her body and trapped there by the rituals used to raise her as a death knight. Within hours, Ashanae was a willing servant of the Lich King, granted power that made lesser undead tremble at her feet. All of this took place several months before the forces of Azeroth chose to breach Naxxramas's defenses and enter the dread citadel themselves. "I am become death..." Anathamae With her new unlife came a series of new lessons. The necromancers and Death Knights were most pleased to discover that Ashanae was as talented at spreading disease in death as she was at stopping it in life. It was as if undeath had turned her into the perfect perversion of the priestess she once was. She showed a strong affinity for disease and pestilence and had an uncanny knack for raising the dead, possessing a skill that rivaled the most learned members of the Cult of the Damned. With this discovered came a new name-Anathemae, for surely such a being would be anathema to all she encountered. As Ana (as she came to be known) required next to no military training (given her considerable age and combat expertise), she set out and began learning from the master necromancers Naxxramas had to offer-Gothik the Harvester and Noth the Plaguebringer. Her primary task as part of that training was the creation of her runeblade. Instead of runescribing one of the readily available weapons at hand, she opted to forge her own. Between forging sessions, she studied with the necromancers. Saith Lleisiau, "Seven Voices", Runeblade of the Meistr To the chagrin of some and the delight of others, Ana gathered her materials, which included no small quantity of saronite from the stores as well as Dark Iron ore. Included in this, however, was something unusual. Ana found seven of the most powerful necromancers and killed them, trapping their souls in talismans and draining their blood into saronite lined troughs. Then she began work on the blade. She shaped the metal into a large hookblade engraved with runes of death, pestilence, and mastery over the dead. The forging of the blade took weeks of tireless work, and she quenched it in the blood of the necromancers she'd killed. When it was finished, she imbued the seven souls into it. She named the blade Saith Lleisiau (SAY-eeth lay-SEE-ow), which means "Seven Voices" in an ancient kaldorei dialect. As she imbued the weapon with the souls, she bound them to a tone-a hummed note she sang during the binding. This note allows her to call on the soul of the necromancer it is bound to and grants Ana access to its power, which she uses in conjunction with her own prodigious skill. When she does this, the skull on the guard of the hookblade opens its mouth and sing-screams the same note. This also makes the blade semi-sentient. While none of the souls has free will, they can speak to her when they wish. This gives her an edge in battle as the Lleisiau ("Voices") can and often do warn her of danger. This also explains her epithet, the Eighth Voice, as she is the Eighth and Master (referred to as Meistr by the Lleisiau) Voice of the blade. After she fashioned and fastened the guard, grip, and pommel onto the blade, she completed the blade by adding a long chain to it. This chain is small linked and crafted of a twisted saronite and truesteel blend that attaches at the pommel of Saith Lleisiau and wraps up Ana's right arm, disappearing into her right pauldron. Inside the pauldron is a ring of runes crafted by a fallen mage that opens up a miniature portal into a small demi-plane that the chain passes into. There are several feet of this chain sitting coiled in that portal at any given point in time. This chain-and the portal-allows Ana to throw the hookblade and drag her enemies towards her (a useful skill she picked up from Patchwerk) or to swing it around in deadly arcs. The chain extends and retracts at Ana's wishes, controlled through a unique form of telepathy or telekinesis. The chain is every inch as deadly as the blade, and Ana has been known to garrote her enemies with it. It also means that disarming her is rarely an option as she can simply call the blade back to her hand. Once the blade was completed and Anathemae was appropriately armed and armored, she was given orders to leave Naxxramas and head to the area known as the Plaguewood to do what she could to maintain the Scourge's iron grip in that area. It was during this time that the forces of the living begant to assault the necropolis in earnest. However, it was not long before a long forgotten threat reared its head and called the living to a distant, broken world. Betrayal at Light's Hope The Winged Banshee of the Plaguelands During this time, when the vast majority of Azeroth's military forces were off world, crusading across the broken husk of Outland and dealing with the perceived threat of Illidan Stormrage, Anathemae strengthened the Scourge's grip on he Plaguewood and began spreading its influence across the Eastern Plaguelands. She took one of the ziggurats, hidden deep within the plague mushroom forest, as her headquarters and set about raising the local dead in the area, of which there were many. With this freshly raised and easily replenishable army (given the Horde and Alliance's mini-war over the Argent Dawn Towers), she began leading lightning strikes against the Argent Dawn, whose forces were spread too thin to effectively defend each outpost they claimed. The troops stationed at the Towers fell quickly and were either captured or killed, and brought to Stratholme and the Plaguewood to be tortured and eventually turned. She led her forces from the back of her mighty frostwyrm, and her raids were often precluded by haunted singing as Anathemae turned her banchee voice against her enemies, weakening their resolve and shattering their peace. As the war for Outland was winding to a close, Ana began to realize the Lich King was awakening. During this time, the number of raids she led ramped up considerably. The shadow of her frostwyrm's wings crossed the Plaguelands like an ill omen, and the Argent Dawn was forced to retreat to Light's Hope Chapel to avoid losing any more of their troops. With no support from the militant forces of Azeroth, they holed up in the Chapel as best they could to make a desperate last stand. Light's Hope Chapel When the Lich King finally awoke, Anathemae was ordered to Acherus when Naxxramas moved north. There, she was to assist with the raising of more Death Knights to assault, and finally destroy, Light's Hope Chapel and the livings last stronghold. For months, she worked tirelessly crafting armor for the newly risen Knights (leaving the actual raising to Cult necromancers and liches). When it came to the actual Battle for Light's Hope, Ana was one of the Death Knight leaders responsible for raising the massive army of the dead that attacked with the besieging Knights. The rest, as they say, is history. Ana, like her other brethren, were betrayed and left to die. Unwilling to put over 10,000 years of experience into the grave, she agreed to serve Highlord Darion Mograine again and joined the Knights of the Ebon Blade, proudly becoming one of its first members. Rejoining the Alliance ((wip)) Recent Activity Wrath of the Lich King ((wip)) The Cataclysm ((wip)) Mists of Pandaria ((wip)) Warlords of Draenor ((wip)) Legion ((wip))Category:Characters Category:Night Elf Category:Death Knights